Attempting Quotes - Page 14

• He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk.

  Terry Pratchett

  Records, World, Way

  Terry Pratchett (2012). “The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld”, p.12, Harper Collins

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• Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Emotion, Fit

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.25, Penguin

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• ...in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.

  Louise Bogan

  Heart, Giving, Despair

  Louise Bogan (1970). “A Poet's Alphabet: Reflections on the Literary Art and Vocation”, New York : McGraw-Hill

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• “Cherie, did the table do something I did not see or were you just attempting to teach it a lesson?” “I was imagining it was Evor.” “Strange, they do not greatly resemble each other.” “I have a good imagination.” “In that case, I do not suppose you are imagining I'm Brad Pitt?”

  Alexandra Ivy

  Imagination, Tables, Lessons

  "When Darkness Comes".

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• As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly.

  Paul Rudnick

  Morning, Reading, Writing

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• Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.

  Daisaku Ikeda

  Buddhist, Morning, Spring

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• Even while writing his book, he had become painfully aware how little he knew his own planet while attempting to piece together another one from jagged bits filched from deranged brains.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Book, Writing, Brain

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1996). “Novels, 1969-1974”

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• While historians may go on attempting grand, sweeping and defining narratives, they work in a time when readers know that another narrative always lies in wait, and that the more intelligent an historian is, the more tentative and self-scrutinizing the tone.

  Colm Toibin

  Lying, Intelligent, Self

  "History students will no longer tolerate or believe grand narratives" by Colm Toibin, www.theguardian.com. August 10, 2013.

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• Overwinding happens when hedge funds destroy companies by attempting to leverage derivatives against otherwise productive long-term assets.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Long, Derivatives, Assets

  Douglas Rushkoff (2013). “Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now”, p.88, Penguin

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• Imagine it's 1981. You're an artist, in love with art, smitten with art history. You're also a woman, with almost no mentors to look to; art history just isn't that into you. Any woman approaching art history in the early eighties was attempting to enter an almost foreign country, a restricted and exclusionary domain that spoke a private language.

  Jerry Saltz

  Country, Art, Mentor

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• What I'm attempting to do is to show people that if I can spend some time with very dangerous spiders and snakes and scorpions, then maybe they'll feel different about the spiders and snakes they find around their areas. I don't need people to keep them as pets. I just like them to be respectful and see that everything in nature has its place.

  Dominic Monaghan

  Snakes, People, Pet

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• My mother, whom I love dearly, has continually revised my life story within the context of a complicated family history that includes more than the usual share of divorce, step-children, dysfunction, and obfuscation. I've spent most of my adult life attempting to deconstruct that history and separate fact from fiction.

  Melissa Gilbert

  Mother, Children, Divorce

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• We may overcompensate for our feelings of powerlessness by attempting to control and manipulate other people and our environment. Or we may eventually burst forth with uncontrolled rage that is highly exaggerated and distorted by its long suppression.

  Shakti Gawain

  Long, People, Feelings

  Shakti Gawain (2015). “The Shakti Gawain Essentials: 3 Books in 1: Creative Visualization, Living in the Light & Developing Intuition”, p.177, Mango Media Inc.

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• Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.

  Nick Cave

  People, Waiting, Down And

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• Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the point where we entirely miss the obvious - that is, that we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries, and we're each following our own paths of enlightenment.

  Dan Brown

  Fall, Missing, Enlightenment

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• When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Writing, Hair, Unity

  FaceBook post by Edwidge Danticat from Jul 12, 2011

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• I remember saying things, but I have no idea what was said. It was generally a friendly conversation.” —Associated Press reporter Jack Sullivan, attempting to recount a 3 A.M. exchange we had at a dinner party and inadvertently describing the past ten years of my life.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Party, Past, Years

  Chuck Klosterman (2013). “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”, p.4, Faber & Faber

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• He wished she knew his impressions; but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent.

  Thomas Hardy

  Feelings, Language, Silent

  "Far from the Madding Crowd". Book by Thomas Hardy, 1874.

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• Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?--TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out. Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature--a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Running, Children, Men

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• "A man inferior with the blade or with his thoughts can still so elevate himself," Entreri explained curtly, "if he can impart the belief that some god or other speaks through him. It is the greatest deception in all the world and one embraced by kings and lords, while the minor lying thieves on the streets or Calimport and other cities lose their tongues for so attempting to coax the purses of others."

  R. A. Salvatore

  Kings, Lying, Men

  "Servant of the Shard (The Sellswords, Book 1)". Book by R.A. Salvatore, 2000.

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• To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.

  Rene Descartes

  Eye

  Rene Descartes (2017). “The Principles of Philosophy”, p.5, BookRix

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• I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.

  David Levithan

  Writing, Character, Plot

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.181, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.

  Tennessee Williams

  Space, Lost, Menagerie

  Tennessee Williams (1999). “The Glass Menagerie”, p.12, New Directions Publishing

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• ...it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.

  Terry Pratchett

  Knowing, Done, Ingredients

  FaceBook post by Terry Pratchett from Nov 23, 2016

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• It was tough attempting to be social with people who'd rather pretend you didn't exist.

  Heather Brewer

  People, Tough, Social

  Heather Brewer (2008). “Ninth Grade Slays #2: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod”, p.37, Penguin

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